FILM REVIEW; A Daydream Or a Chance, With Echoes Of Bunuel

Oh, for the chance to go back and relive the past and not make the same mistake twice. How sweetly tormenting such a fantasy can be when applied to love. If only, if only, if only.

At least in the movies it's possible to go back and imagine getting it right the second time. Or is it? That's the teasing question that's skillfully drawn out in ''Twice Upon a Yesterday,'' a Spanish film made in London with a mostly British cast. Toying with romantic possibility in somewhat the same way as ''Sliding Doors,'' ''Twice Upon a Yesterday,'' which opens today at the Angelika, is far less symmetrical than its forerunner and lacks the star power of Gwyneth Paltrow. But it is a more psychologically penetrating exploration of the grass-is-always-greener syndrome and other pitfalls of the romantic life. Think of the movie as ''Sliding Doors'' darkened with a swirl of Alan Rudolph's moody introspection.

The lucky man who is given a romantic second chance is Victor Bukowski (Douglas Henshall), a struggling actor whose live-in girlfriend Sylvia Weld (Lena Headey) leaves him after he confesses to having had an affair. As played by Mr. Henshall, Victor suggests a younger, better-looking Dudley Moore in one of his libidinous, tippling buffoon roles.

The man Sylvia leaves Victor to marry, Dave Summers (Mark Strong) is a tall-dark-handsome environmentalist who has everything going for him except the goofy, vulnerable charm that Victor effuses in hysterical gushes. Once he's been abandoned, Victor mopes around London, literally crying in his beer. He finds an especially sympathetic ear in Diane (Elizabeth McGovern), a redheaded barmaid who exudes a supernatural empathy. Shortly after meeting her, he is discovered in the trash by two jovial sanitation workers who may be the reincarnated Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The pair escort Victor to a garbage dump, where they whirl him around until he is magically transported back into the recent past.

Reliving the same scene in which he confessed to Sylvia, Victor lies about the affair and smothers his beloved with avowals of eternal devotion. She seems pleased, if a little bewildered, by his sudden enthusiasm. Their future seems rosier when Victor succeeds in preventing Sylvia from visiting the gym where she first met Dave.

But it's not so easy. And Dave enters Sylvia's life on the arm of her best friend. Now that Victor has reformed and become everything Sylvia wanted him to be, the lovers will live happily ever after, right? Wrong. Sylvia still succumbs to Dave's charms and the two begin a clandestine affair. And then what happens?

''Twice Upon a Yesterday'' is a bit like retracing your steps backward through a maze. Eventually you get so confused that you find yourself lost in a strange new place. Revisiting the bar where he met Diane, Victor finds her predecessor, a beautiful Spanish woman, Louise (Penelope Cruz), and the two begin a passionate affair. Meanwhile, Sylvia realizes there's something missing in her relationship with Dave.

The movie, directed by Maria Ripoll from a screenplay by Rafa Russo, has a surreal undertone that suggests a pop echo of Luis Bunuel. As its story branches out, the possibility of Victor's retracing his steps once again seems increasingly remote. As the characters create a different future from the one they lived before, the movie begins to lose its narrative grip and to feel like a meandering daydream.

''Twice Upon a Yesterday'' is far too cagey to tell us if this alternate history is a dream. If it is, it is one from which Victor never awakens. In the movie's happy-sad ending, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza reappear in time to whirl another tear-stained loser in love into a world of second chances.

''Twice Upon a Yesterday'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has sexual situations and glimpses of nudity.

TWICE UPON A YESTERDAY

Directed by Maria Ripoll; written by Rafa Russo; director of photography, Javier Salmones; edited by Nacho Ruiz-Capillas; music by Luis Mendo, Bernardo Fuster and Angel Illarramendi; production designer, Grant Hicks; produced by Juan Gordon; released by Trimark Pictures. At the Angelika Film Center, Mercer and Houston Streets, Greenwich Village. Running time: 96 minutes. This film is rated R.